Essay Sample on Family Trauma Support: Healing for Victims of Abuse and Mental Health Issues

Introduction

Every day, families in Canada and other parts of the world experience traumatic experiences such as domestic violence, sexual offences and even mental health issues like Depression and bipolar disorders. Social support agencies have therefore set out to assist the victims of such pain and abuse in the families, especially vulnerable children. The support services perform many roles, such as providing therapy sessions for the victims of damage which may have been caused by substance abuse as post-traumatic interventions (McClennen et al.,. 2016). The social service agencies selected for this paper is the Burnaby Family Services and Catholic Community Services of Montreal.

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Burnaby Family Life is a social service institution that supports families that live in Burnaby and also Westminster in several ways including provision of family life education, pre and postnatal services to women, counselling services, family resource programs and has an excellent vision for the community. Pre& postpartum program is a program that assists the women in experiencing many challenges like problematic pregnancies and supporting them after birth. It aids new mothers who have problems like postnatal Depression and makes sure their children are raised in safe and healthy environments. The women get access to nutritionists, and one on one services with Outreach workers. Burnaby has a program that assists immigrants who have difficulties adapting to the new environments, integrates them into the Canadian community and in accessing services by teaching them the English language.

Moreover, Burnaby offers weekly support groups for family life education where parents are taught how to create positive relationships with their kids, communication built on respect and cooperation, and how to make discipline productive. The staff teach healthy nutrition, child development, anger management; they support single mothers and teach fatherhood, how fathers can also create bonds with their children. Youth programs and counselling is also held, and Burnaby provides an Open Art studio called the Hub Open Studio where the youth can unwind by engaging in yoga and other workouts, and it supports the art and talent. All this is done to enhance positive mental health. The organization sets an emergency time for women and female youth who have recently experienced abuse whether physical, emotional or sexual and provides immediate support to them by counselling them and increasing their self- awareness and esteem. Childcare and child minding programs give the children and their parents to participate in play-based learning, thereby reducing the feeling of neglect and promotes social networking.

The ages served are varied, both the parents, children and the youth can be part of the programs. The children from the age of 0-6 and their parents are part of the Family Resource Program, and counselling incorporates all ages, children, youth and adults. Their clients are those who live in Burnaby and Westminster who can access their services from the age zero.

The mission/vision of Burnaby is responding appropriately to the needs of the community by providing them with quality services for a safe environment. It is mainly aimed at stopping violence in the Burnaby community and enabling violence victims to live a free life again by feeling safe in their environments. Burnaby has been in existence since February 1971. We could use their services as Child Development Practitioners by asking for their help in understanding the steps of child development, how each age responds to different situations and the best way to show love and concern to the kids.

The other organization is the Catholic Community Services of Montreal, which has been in existence since 1932, which provides excellent support for the children, families and also youth. The parent-child mother goose program, which involves parents and their children aged 0-6 enables kids and their parents to participate in nursery rhymes, stories, dances and songs together. Parents form bonds with their children in their first years of life, and this also teaches the children excellent communication and language skills at a young age.

Additionally, the CCS Early Head Start Program also for children aged between zero and five and their parents is set to prepare the children for school. The parents in organized workshops are taught how to build healthy families. The Little Learners aged between two to five are taught literacy, creativity and numeracy skills among many others to make them well prepared for preschool. The youth also have programs like the Girls" Empowerment Program which prepares the girls for the outside challenges by building resilience, increasing their self-awareness and mindfulness. Several meditation practices are done, and the girls write in their journals their experiences and this enables them to face social issues such as low self -esteem. The Lions Roar program also teaches the young how to cope in tough situations. CCS also has much community which are aimed at increasing mental, physical and emotional wellbeing of the city, (Rousseau, 2015)

The client for CCS are all age groups since it envelops the whole community of Montreal. CCS mission is to improve the quality of life of the community by significantly reducing neglect and effectively supporting those living in poverty, majorly within the English speaking community of Greater Montreal. The organization has been of great help in Montreal for over 86 years making significant changes, and it would assist us as Child Development Practitioners to understand the needs of the kids much more through its programs.

References

McClennen, J., Keys, A. M., & Day, M. (2016). Social work and family violence: theories, assessment, and intervention. Springer Publishing Company.

Ruiz-Casares, M., Kolyn, L., Sullivan, R., & Rousseau, C. (2015). Parenting adolescents from ethnocultural backgrounds: A scan of community-based programs in Canada for the promotion of adolescent mental health. Children and Youth Services Review, 53, 10-16. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740915001048